Technology company Demcon from Best has developed and delivered a fully functioning respirator within a month. The system meets all requirements and can be used to ventilate corona patients.
The ventilator system will be distributed to hospitals by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. Demcon will soon be supplying a total of 500 ventilator systems. “The government has had the courage to place an order for 500 units with us. We have already gained a great deal of knowledge and experience with ventilator technology and modules, but we had never before supplied a complete ventilator system,” said Demcon CEO Dennis Schipper in a press release on the website. “Our staff have lived up to that trust, working with every ounce of dedication and, at times, round the clock. I am delighted that we can contribute in this way to the major challenge we currently face: ensuring the best possible treatment for patients. This is in our DNA: using technological expertise to solve societal challenges.”
The DemcAir ventilator system is based on the unique ventilation technology previously developed by Demcon and can be used for a wide range of patients, from premature babies to adults. Demcon has been manufacturing the individual ventilator modules for many years. Now, in addition to these modules, Demcon has developed a fully-fledged ventilator system, here in the Netherlands, for the treatment of (young) adults. On Thursday 19 March, Demcon began preparations, and on Sunday 22 March, the order was received from the Ministry for the supply of 500 units. Following successful clinical trials on several patients, the first units have now been delivered – within a month.
Medical product development
One month, that's pretty short. Schipper: "Even though we had the ventilation module available and built the complete system as simply as possible, it is and remains complex. Such a ventilation system is vital for ICU care, must be 100% safe for the patient and easy to operate by the doctors and nurses. We therefore paid a lot of attention to safety and ease of operation and tested it carefully. In doing so, we were able to build on the experience we have gained over the past ten years."
National expert group
Demcon is not the first company in the Netherlands to use its expertise and production line to develop healthcare products for the Dutch market. Several manufacturing companies had already started work on items such as face masks, protective aprons and ventilators. Whilst that speed is welcome and necessary, care is also important, says Lieke Poot in the same press release on Demcon’s website. Poot is a clinical physicist at the Isala hospitals in the Zwolle region and chair of the Dutch Association for Clinical Physics – clinical physicists are responsible for the reliability and safety of medical equipment in hospitals. Poot is also a member of the national expert group on ventilators at the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. “The expert group is identifying which devices from outside hospitals are suitable for intensive care, assessing proposals from existing suppliers and supporting manufacturing initiatives. A great many clever people and companies want to help and are coming up with inventive ideas. It’s wonderful to see that everyone is focused on finding solutions. This does, however, involve life-support equipment, so as an expert group we must assess whether something works properly and contributes to the patient’s treatment. Demcon has a great deal of experience with the mechanical components – the ventilation module has been in clinical use for years. We were confident that they would be able to develop a housing and software to support it within a short timeframe.”
A manufacturing process for a medical device can normally take up to a year or more, explains Poot. "Now we follow a kind of pressure cooker procedure, in which we cannot fully follow the applicable laws and regulations, while we have to arrive at a functional and safe product. We designed that procedure as we went along, in intensive cooperation with Demcon. We are very transparent on both sides and, at our request, they allowed Dekra (the certification body, ed.) to observe the drafting of the technical documentation and the risk management. Everyone sees the importance, this way we can realise things that normally cannot be realised in such a short time."
Suppliers
The DemcAir ventilation system came about thanks to intensive collaborations, Schipper stresses. "To start with, within our company between numerous colleagues spread across different locations. And we have short lines of communication with the National Resource Consortium and the expert group. " Suppliers also did their best to deliver essential components and submodules on time. Demcon's complete system, including the central module, contains more than 200 different components. They come from Allied Motion, SPIE, VDL, 2E Interconnection, Hoerbiger, tbp electronics and CE Compressed Air Technology, among others.
Source: Demcon.
